Page 42 of So This is Christmas

AMBER

Her day might not have gone quite as she planned but at least she’d made trouble for Sophie. That, Amber supposed, was the silver lining. And the lining almost shimmered when she thought of Jennie’s reaction to Sophie.

She placed an order for room service and then took out the bottle of wine she’d bought in duty-free.

It was Christmas Day and nobody was going to ruin that for her.

She was going to eat a sumptuous meal, wash it down with copious amounts of alcohol, and appreciate the fact that while she hadn’t got her feet under the table at the Wynters’, neither had Sophie.

The way Jennie had looked at Sophie was priceless too.

Amber couldn’t have planned that part better if she’d tried.

But her elation faded because she’d been gullible enough to believe an old bag at the care home who was frequently confused, and her dad wouldn’t have been impressed with that one bit.

She should’ve checked her facts before she got all excited and came here to Vienna.

Then again, it had been worth the trip to see Sophie flee the apartment when the Wynters were given the truth that they deserved.

Amber’s grasp of what she believed to be the facts about the Wynters had come one day as she lingered outside Bea’s door at the care home. She’d been fetching sheets from the supply cupboard for Mr Crawley in Room 15 while one of the workers took him for his shower.

She’d pulled out a sheet, two pillowcases – Mr Crawley had made an almighty fuss that one pillow wasn’t enough and they’d had a bit of a laugh because the pillows really were far too thin.

She’d told him about a hotel she once stayed in with a pillow menu.

He’d loved that story. They’d talked for half an hour until one of her staff interrupted them to administer his medication.

She had the linen in her arms and closed the supply cupboard door.

She could hear Sophie and Bea in the room next to where she was standing, chatting away, and she was about to poke her head in to suggest that perhaps Sophie could do less talking and more in the way of working, when their conversation caught her interest.

‘The Wynter Hotel is truly wonderful, you know,’ Bea’s wobbly voice rang out.

‘It sounds amazing,’ Sophie said in that irritatingly sweet sing-song voice of hers.

‘Imagine owning an entire hotel?’ Bea went on.

Amber froze, the sheets bundled in her arms. Imagine. She’d heard Bea talking about the Wynter family with Sophie plenty of times before, but she hadn’t realised they were in the hotel business, let alone owned one.

‘I wish I could visit one last time, see my beautiful Vienna.’ Bea was talking so loudly Amber swore it was her hearing going rather than her sight, but right now the volume was coming in handy.

Amber had never liked Sophie all that much, and ever since Sophie had put in an official complaint about her and she’d feared for her job, Amber had wanted to make things difficult for her however she could.

Her dad had always taught her to stand up for herself in life, and she’d always wanted to make him proud.

When the complaint was launched, she’d saved herself easily enough.

Sophie had reported her and her grievances were raised, a meeting or mediation of sorts had followed, and Amber had been nice as anything.

Sophie had accused her of blaming others unfairly – all a misunderstanding, Amber had replied before talking her way out of any scenario Sophie threw at her.

Apparently Amber had ignored staff too – prove it!

, she’d wanted to yell, but had instead got her point across calmly and politely.

And as for Amber neglecting her duties, well, Sophie had had no proof of that either.

It was Sophie’s word against Amber’s and as Amber had been beyond nice to her in the meeting, with a hand on her chest as if she were heartbroken at the allegations coming her way, things hadn’t progressed any further.

And Amber had been sure to keep herself more than in line and go over and above what was expected of her after that confrontation.

With the eyes of the powers that be on her, she wasn’t about to lose her job because of an interfering, over-eager, snitch of an employee.

It wasn’t so long ago that Amber had gained another advantage by listening outside this very same door.

That day she’d learned all she needed to know about Ms Hannagan.

She considered it a very good thing to know a little bit extra about her employees; it kept them in line.

Her dad had encouraged her to assert herself, to be the leader not a follower, to never let anyone take advantage, and since that day listening at the door, Amber had been privy to Sophie’s secrets.

She had a nice hold over her and now she was finding out even more information that one day could come in very handy indeed.

‘Sophie, tell me you’ll go some day to see the city for yourself,’ said Bea after she’d blathered on about Vienna a bit more. ‘The Wynters will look after you. And Nick…’

‘You and Greta and your matchmaking, you’re incorrigible.

’ Sophie giggled like a teenager rather than the forty-year-old woman that she was, with lines starting to appear on her face.

She was also a bit on the weighty side around her hips, in Amber’s opinion.

Whoever Nick Wynter was, Amber was sure he could do better than Sophie with her do-gooder attitude.

‘He’s what you might call a catch,’ said Bea.

‘I’m sure he is.’

Amber shot a look to one of the workers when they came to get a towel from the cupboard she was hovering beside. He didn’t hang around. She had good authority here, and most people gave her a wide berth unless she spoke to them first.

When Sophie and Bea moved on to talking about Sophie’s son, Amber left them to their chit-chat and made her way along the corridor towards Room 15 to dump the sheets. One of the assistants could make the bed up.

When she emerged and Monica from reception waved over to her, Amber put on a smile because standing next to Monica were visitors. Damn. She bet this was the family she had an appointment with – in an hour.

‘We’re sorry we’re so early,’ said the gentleman, Mr Smythe. The woman at his side uttered her own apologies.

‘It’s totally fine, we’re very relaxed about visitors here at the Tapestry Lodge. I can show you both around now.’ And at least this way it would be over and done with. But really, was it so hard to show up at the correct time?

She showed the Smythes around the lodge.

She assured them that if the woman’s father came here, he would be very happy, and she didn’t let the smile that was making her face ache slip until she showed them out.

She’d done a good job. She ran a tight ship in this place – residents were safe, nobody complained much unless you counted the staff who didn’t always like to follow her rules, and she considered the amount they charged a resident to stay here fair and reasonable.

On the way to her office she reprimanded one of her staff who had seen fit to leave a wheelchair against a wall but around a corner where it would be easy to bump into. Honestly, were some people born stupid?

She closed the door of her office behind her. Bea was trying to matchmake Sophie with this Nick Wynter and Amber wanted to see who he was and whether he was worth the fuss.

At her desk, her bright-red manicured fingernails stretched across the computer mouse as she moved it to wake up the screen.

Her nails clickety-clacked against the keyboard as she typed in her search and when she scrolled through the results, there he was.

Nick Wynter, General Manager of the Wynter Hotel in Vienna.

And he was definitely what you would call a catch.

She sat back in her chair. The guy was seriously good-looking. He was obviously rich. It wasn’t fair, was it, how some people had so much and others had so little? That’s another thing her dad had always said – that some people were born lucky, others had to find their own luck.

She looked at some of Nick Wynter’s bio… He was eleven years older than her, according to this article and the simple arithmetic she did in her head. She wouldn’t usually go for anyone more than five years older, but for him she could make an exception.

And according to the article, he was still single.

‘Look at him,’ she said out loud, staring at the photograph of him in a well-cut, expensive-looking suit.

She spun around in her chair, gleeful at her discovery, only to come face-to-face with bloody Sophie.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sophie. ‘I did knock.’

Amber hadn’t heard – she’d been too busy planning out a future with a handsome hotelier in her head. Daydreaming was what got her through most days. It was what made the non-stop requests coming her way, the meetings, and the residents needing attention, bearable.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve had a few requests to find out when the Christmas decorations are going up,’ Sophie said in her pathetically kind-sounding voice.

It was a voice that irritated Amber and felt much like when a woodpecker used its feet, tail and beak to climb up a tree, and refused to give up. That was Sophie all over. Relentless.

Amber huffed. ‘They’ll be going up today.’

‘Great. We’re fast approaching December after all.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing.’ And with a last-ditch effort to be nice or whatever it was she was trying to do, Sophie said, ‘You know how impatient our residents get when it comes to Christmas.’

‘Only because it could be their bloody last,’ she muttered before fixing Sophie with a stare because she still showed no signs of leaving. ‘Was there something else you wanted?’

She paused before she said, ‘No.’

‘Then close the door on your way out.’ She looked back at Nick Wynter staring at her from the screen. This guy could do so much better than Sophie Hannagan.